Friday, June 4, 2010

Bored? With all this entertainment, why are you still bored? How never to get bored

“I'm Bored.”

You hear this lament quite often these days. But there is absolutely no reason to be bored. After all, you have the 24-hour radio, the 24-hour TV, the 24-hour Internet, your mobile, new and old films, unlimited music albums and videos, a vast range of magazines and books, live shows, museums, exhibitions, public lectures...the list is endless. You have all the entertainment you can possibly enjoy and yet you are bored. What's wrong? Maybe you have an easy life.

One thing is clear: the answer to your boredom lies within you – not outside. You cannot blame your school or college, you job or business, the traffic or routine chores. Some people are bored temporarily but others seem to be bored all along because they are dissatisfied with their lives. Short term or long term, boredom takes a heavy toll. If it carries on, it turns into depression and you slide downhill on the slippery road of mental ill health – a major concern of our modern society. The advance of science and technology has given us more free time than ever before as we do not spend much of our time doing the routine chores now. Yet we don't know what to do with all this free time we have. Nothing commands our attention for long as we get bored quickly. Just watch yourself flipping TV channels and you will find out how you get bored within seconds.

Can you think when you are not bored? Yes, when you are in love. Your heart has a special bouncy beat as you think of your beloved all the time - remembering the last phone call over and over, constantly sending and getting SMSs or MMSs, counting the minutes to your next date or just thinking about your beloved all the time about what is she/he doing right now. Great while it lasts.

You are never bored when you face a real challenge in your life. You have focused all your energies, all your resources and all your thinking to plan and survive against heavy odds. You have no time to be bored because you are fighting for your life or a very cherished aim. This works until you overcome the challenge.

But how to fight boredom for your whole life? He says, “A man also should be a little raw, a little wild, ready to live in insecurity, ready to risk, ready to go on the un-trodden paths, always ready to take the challenge of the dangerous. Then life is every moment an ecstasy, and boredom disappears.”Osho advises, “Try, if you cannot do anything else, then only do this: commit suicide as far as your ego is concerned. You will never get bored. You will be like an empty mirror. Whatsoever is reflected is always new because the mirror is empty, it cannot compare. It cannot say, "I have seen this face before."

Bored people end up committing suicide and kill their bodies. Osho advises you to meditate regularly and kill your ego – not your body. Become the empty mirror, become ego less. And then there is no boredom - all life is a blessing, a deep ecstasy.